Poll Time! Best Themed Land in WDW?

Sigh

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:joy: Could be enough to tip Liberty Square over the top! :joy::joy::joy:

If you click “Hide results” in the lower left hand corner of the poll, you can vote again. :slight_smile:

I guess SWGE makes you want to travel to a galaxy far, far away - so much so that you have taken that bucket list item that has always niggled in the back of your brane and started a bank account specifically to save for that goal. :wink:

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I picked SWGE. Not because I love Star Wars. In fact, I expected to arrive to SWGE and be upset because it isn’t actually anything from Star Wars (as I know it), other than a few things within it.

But when I actually arrived and saw it, I was blown away by the level of detail. Not just the big overall look, but down to the minutia. I actually feel it surpasses both Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, which I wouldn’t have guessed.

I didn’t even spend all that much time in SWGE, so hopefully during our next trip I can take more time to absorb all the details. If it wasn’t for all those other guests from Earth roaming about, it would almost convince I was in a galaxy far, far away!

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How rude!!

Comparing ALL lands at once!

Really, @Jeff_AZ, what were you thinking.

I have not been to Star Wars land at HS. And really haven’t been a fan since Episode 6, altho that Rogue movie was ok. :thinking: perhaps I’ve only liked 3 of the movies.

But as much as I like a LOT of the theming all over the World, some resorts included, Africa is the only place I feel like I might really be there. Altho I’m quite sure I might travel much in Africa and never see anything like AK’s Africa.

I’m sure that’s the closest I care to get to Africa.

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I’m in the “SWGE wins my vote but Africa was my 2nd” camp. It is just so immersive. And Batuu at night? A-mazing.

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You have crossed a line. You are dead to me.

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Voted for ‘Other’ as it is impossible for me to compare.
To break it down by Park:

MK - Main Street
AK - Africa
HS - SWGE
EP - World Showcase

They are all excellent!! There is something magical about the ability to move from Asia to Africa or from Morocco to Norway in a matter of minutes.

There are some runner-ups as well: Frontierland, Fantasyland, Asia and Pandora are some that come to mind.

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This is tough b/c I could do a best theme from each park! I haven’t been to SW:GE yet either! I’m gonna vote Main Street because when I think of WDW that’s the first image that comes to mind. The shops, vehicles, looking at The Castle & etc…

I realize Pandora / SW:GE are probably better “themed”, but Main Street is iconic.

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I’ve voted for SWGE. I am a big Star Wars fan, the original movie came out when I was 12 years old. I was able to convince parents and older siblings to take me to see the movie six times that summer.

My first visit was for the AP preview, drove down Friday evening went on Saturday, and drove back Sunday morning. We had a 12:30 entrance time, went in an hour early, and spent the entire afternoon there, till they started closing down in the early evening.

Walking into and around the land, I felt like I was really in the movies.

Bt the end of the day, MFSR was a walk on. My daughter and I just kept going back on. Feels like I really am on the Falcon.

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This is a very tough question.

In Orlando as a whole, the answer is easy: WWOHP. @ryan1 — who is dead to me — is simply wrong.

But limiting it to WDW makes it really tough.

Before I looked at the options I didn’t even consider AK. The theming is brilliant, but I’m not emotionally attached to it.

The candidates that had originally jumped to mind were: SWGE and TSL. I resonate emotionally more with TSL, but SWGE is clearly so much bigger and more visually complex and stimulating. On the other hand, TSL is so pretty at night.

Then I saw you’d included Main Street, which I adore. Though partly because of the view of the Castle in the distance, though that is not in the same “land”.

I have an affection for Pandora, but have also found it a bit disappointing. I don’t buy the floating mountains at all — they are clearly not floating: they are held up by suspiciously strong vines.

SWGE was a bit disappointing, too. It’s much more open than I was expecting, making it less immersive to me.

Ugh. Which to choose. Let’s do it on the following basis: if I was banned for life from ever entering all the others, which would I choose to save?

I think Main Street. It’s an original land, i.e. Walt himself created it and walked down it. It’s definitively Disney World. It’s richly themed. It has (ugh) a “wow” factor. It lifts my spirits to see it and be in it.

And it takes on different looks: at night, at Halloween, at Christmas.

I think I have to put my vote there.

(A couple of these photos were stolen from the internet.)

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I’ll take Diagon Alley over any WDW land any day! Before going to WWOHP, I had read the books, but won’t have considered myself a HP “fan”. Because of WWOHP, I now know my house (both UK & US) / Patronus / wand type / own t-shirts and multiple wands. I can & have spent entire days never leaving WWOHP from open to close at Universal. Plus, I’m actually allowed / encouraged to wear a wizard robe & play - unlike SW:GE.

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Here’s my thing with Main Street. It’s the first thing I walk right on through to get to everything else.

Sure, I like the theming. And there is an emotional tug when you see it, with the castle at the end. But the emotional tug is more about what’s at the END of Main Street and where it leads than it is Main Street in and of itself. And at the end of the day, I also don’t tend to look at it. Instead, we end up going through the Emporium or just bypass it entirely to get out of the park.

Now, if you stop to actually look at it, the theming is great for it’s day. But it isn’t transportive for me at all, other than transporting me to Disney. :slight_smile:

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A couple of extra points.

It’s a credit to the imagineers that the decision is so tough. So much — almost all — of WDW is jaw-dropping. That’s why we all keep going back.

@Damavs is surely trolling? DinoLand USA is a disgrace. It should be bulldozed.

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It is worth noting that I asked a similar poll last year: If you could pick just ONE "land", which would it be?

Interesting to see how things change now that SWGE has been around a while.

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That’s because you’re enormously intelligent. It’s not fair on other — less intelligent (and, I’ll wager, sexually magnetic) — people to nominate Diagon Alley because they simply don’t have the capacity to appreciate it as the world-beating feat of imagineering that it is.

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I was torn between Africa and TSL as well! I’ve only been to SWGE once and didn’t really have a lot of time to explore and ‘feel’ the land so I don’t feel like I can adequately evaluate it for my ranking. I LOVE TSL! Like @sanstitre_has_left_the_building said, the emotional attachment to that land for me is pretty high and the theming is just perfect. I ended up voting for Africa though because it really does make you feel like you are somewhere other than Florida. It’s quite breathtaking.

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I did too! That’s why I voted for it. We went to the DLR SWGE last August and crowds were really low. My daughter and I walked in with no one around us. We entered into the back alley entrance and we could see/hear Storm Troopers in the First Order area. I instantly panicked as if I was a Resistance fighter that needed to hide from them! And hide we did. But they don’t seem to enter the alley area. :slight_smile: All we did that first day was walk around and absorb. It was amazing.

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Until I saw SWGE, I would have easily picked Diagon Alley as top. But after seeing SWGE, it has dropped to second place.

I think one of the key issues I have with Diagon Alley is that it still feels like I’m in an amusement park version of Diagon Alley. You can easily see the mechanism controlling the bunny under the hat, the dragon just does nothing but spew flames every 10 minutes (that is, it feels fake), etc. But of course there is plenty to love about it because I’m still ranking it #2! And, I also argue that the very reason SWGE is as immersive as it is is due to the incredible job Universal did with WWOHP. The bar was raised. Disney didn’t quite meet that bar with Pandora, I’m afraid. SWGE, though, surpassed it.

SWGE, the more and more I looked at the details, the more believable it all became.

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I’ve never been, but confidently vote SWGE. I can’t wait to watch my husband’s face when we go there for the first time in November (I can almost say “next month!!!”).

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